Good Fats and Bad Fats

It was only about a decade ago that all fat was considered bad for natural weight loss. However nowadays fat is divided into two different categories good fats and bad fats. The good fats are essential to heart health brain functioning and healing. The bad fats cause all kinds of ailments including diabetes, cancer and heart attacks.

Contemporary research shows that you can make yourself sick by cutting all fats from your diets. The good fats are called unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are divided into two categories monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Both types can help lower elevated cholesterol levels. Monounsaturated fats have a dual purpose helping to lower LDL (bad cholesterol) while raising levels of HDL (good cholesterol) at the same time.

Monounsaturated fats also have a slight edge health wise over the polyunsaturated kind because they are thought to be more stable biochemically and less likely to cause free radicals to let loose in the body.

Still polyunsaturated fats are not worthless. They are a fantastic source of essential omega-3 fatty acids. These types of acids are found mostly in dark leafy greens, nuts cold-water fish, flaxseed oils, vegetable oils and some types of seeds. Our bodies cannot manufacture essential fatty acids. Consuming these fish, seeds and nuts is the only way for our bodies to take advantage of their benefits. Essential fatty acids are thought to lower blood pressure, combat LDL (bad) cholesterol, protect the brain and nervous system and have healing effect on the body in the general.

Most cooking oils consist of unsaturated fats. Two oils are a superior choice for cooking because they contain optimum levels of monounsaturated fats. These two oils are canola oil and olive oil. These are the only two oils you should be cooking with if you want to lose weight.

However it is important to remember that whether fat is classified as good or bad it still counts as a calorie. That does not mean that the oil has fewer calories. Whatever type of oil you are eating it will always be one hundred percent fat.

The worst fats are found in meat and dairy. These are called saturated fats and are found mostly in dairy and meat products. You can tell a saturated fat from an unsaturated or monosaturated fat because it remains solid at room temperature. Eating these types of fats on a regular basis also has the effect of directly raising your LDL (bad cholesterol) as well as the count of your total cholesterol.